Category: panoramic landscapes

On the road last winter near Moab Utah, I made a lot of panoramas and I am hopin to go back in 2015 for ome more. It is some really beautiful country down there and pretty empty this time of year. Have a happy New Year in 2015!

Today is the first day of June and the opening of an exhibition of a dozen panoramic urban landscapes at SRG Gallery in Seattle. I will publish some of them here over the course of the exhibition which will be up until the end of July. This first one was taken in New York City in January 2010. I love the view of Times Square from the air. Later on I will publish the panorama I took at ground level in Times Square. Other pictures were taken in Seattle, Paris and Prague.
SRG Gallery is located at 110 Union Street, Suite 300, Seattle across the street from the Seattle Art Museum. Photography by Daniel Sheehan who creates photographic solutions for publications and corporations and a Seattle Wedding Photographer with an artistic photojournalist style.

Recently I was asked if I had any aerial photographs of Mt Rainier and it happened that I did once do some on an Alaskan Airways jet to San Diego . I was on assignment for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation on my way to photograph them meeting Oprah Winfrey and touring some high schools there. As I was was passing Mt Rainier I pulled out my panorama camera and added a red filter and shot a few rolls of black and white film. The aisle I was sitting in, near the back of the aircraft, was empty except for me so I had free rein to shoot on either side of the aircraft and made a few images that I was happy with. There was a lot of cloud cover around the mountain but the summit itself was sticking out of its shroud. This is not the normal view of the mountain one usually sees, but made from about 30,000 feet, it is a view I like to enjoy.
Mount Rainier is a large active stratovolcano about 50 miles southeast of Seattle. It towers over the Cascade Range as the most prominent mountain in the contiguous United States at 14,411 feet, and the highest mountain in Washington and the Cascade Range.
The mountain and the surrounding area are protected within Mount Rainier National Park. With 26 major glaciers and 36 square miles of permanent snowfields and glaciers, Mount Rainier is the most heavily glaciated peak in the lower 48 states. The summit is topped by two volcanic craters, each over 1,000 feet in diameter with the larger east crater overlapping the west crater. Geothermal heat from the volcano keeps areas of both crater rims free of snow and ice, and has formed the world’s largest volcanic glacier cave network within the ice-filled craters. A small crater lake about 130 by 30 feet in size and 16 feet deep, the highest in North America with a surface elevation of 14,203 feet, occupies the lowest portion of the west crater below more than 100 feet of ice and is accessible only via the caves. Photograph by Seattle Photographer Daniel Sheehan specializing in photojournalism, portraits and photography for publications and corporations.

Had a recent request for a skyline of Seattle panorama and found this one on file from a couple of years ago. It was after the hour when you can still see a clear glimpse of Mt Rainier in the distance but I still like the balance of architecture and Space Needle to the right. If you look very closely though Mt. Rainier can be seen faintly behind the buildings in the center of the panorama. Queen Anne has a wonderful vista in the evening light. Photograph by Seattle Photographer Daniel Sheehan specializing in photojournalism, portraits and photography for publications and corporations.

I have been driving by these water towers for the past few years and they always remind me of Bernd and Hilla Bechers who own the topic. The Bechers first collaborated on photographing and documenting the disappearing German industrial architecture in 1959. They were fascinated by the similar shapes in which certain buildings were designed. In addition, they were intrigued by the fact that so many of these industrial buildings seemed to have been built with a great deal of attention toward design. Together, the Bechers went out with a large format camera and photographed these buildings from a number of different angles, but always with a straightforward “objective” point of view. The images of structures with similar functions were then displayed side by side to invite viewers to compare their forms and designs. These structures included barns, water towers, storage silos, and warehouses. Bernd taught at the Düsseldorf Art Academy and influenced students that later made a name for themselves in the photography industry. Former students of Bernd’s included Andreas Gursky, Thomas Ruff, and Candida Höfer.
I can not help but think of them when I see such water towers. As much as I wanted to photograph them, I put off shooting them for a long time. But as the Bechers never worked in panoramic format, my image is a divergence in at least one direction. Background on the Bechers from wikipedia. Photograph by Seattle Photographer Daniel Sheehan specializing in photojournalism, portraits and photography for publications and corporations, and a wedding photographer, with a candid photojournalist style.

I had an editorial assignment over in the Yakima Valley last week so while I was close by, I decided to stop off to make some panoramas of one of my favorite sources of red wine, the Red Mountain Appellation. It is early in the growing season but the vines look very promising this first half of June. Today we have tied the record for the longest stretch without rainfall in Seattle: 29 days. It was also pretty dry over in central Washington. I saw the fire danger signs indicating high.

It’s funny that looking at the mountain in this photograph, you can not see anything red about Red Mountain. Here is some more information on Red Mountain:
The Red Mountain AVA is Washington’s smallest. The region is approximately 4,040 acres with approximately 800 acres currently planted. The name Red Mountain can be misleading for two reasons. First, it does not refer to the color of the mountain’s soil, but rather, some say, to a native grass with a red hue. Secondly, Red Mountain, for those with other mountains in mind, might be a disappointment, since its elevation ranges from only 500 to 1,500 feet. Even so, among the rolling hills of eastern Washington’s desert, Red Mountain’s sloping hillside is a prominent landmark, storing radiant heat for the growing vines of the valley floor. The Yakima River flows nearby, helping moderate climate extremes, as do so many major rivers in wine country regions throughout the world.

In the 1970s, John Williams of Kiona Vineyards and Jim Holmes, originally of Kiona then Ciel du Cheval vineyards, with advice from Walter Clore, (officially recognized by the Washington State Legislature in 2003 as the father of the Washington State wine industry) pioneered grape growing in the area. In the 1980s, wines made from grapes in the Red Mountain area began receiving recognition for their distinct flavor profiles though federal laws permitted only to carry the designation as being from the Columbia Valley AVA or Yakima Valley AVA. In the late 1990s, Lorne Jacobson from Hedges Family Estates started a drive to achieve federal recognition of the area as its own AVA, which was granted in April, 2001. The Hedges Family Estates’ appellation petition was joined by Kiona Vineyards, Blackwood Canyon Vintners, Sandhill Winery, Seth Ryan Winery and Terra Blanca Winery.

In 2007, Chateau Ste Michelle and Marchesi Antinori invested 6.5 million dollars in the appellation to purchase vineyards and establish a winery to produce their joint venture wine, Col Solare.

Some say Red Mountain Appellation has it all: slope, exposure, weather conditions, good air drainage, large swings between day and night temperatures, six wineries within a few miles, plenty of undeveloped land, gravelly soil with high calcium carbonate content and high pH (high alkalinity), both contributing flavor to grapes grown here. Sloping lands beneath the broad Red Mountain lie at the southeast end of the Yakima Valley, overlooking Benton City, where annual rainfall is only about six inches, and supplemental irrigation is usually provided a few months into the growing season. Wines made from Red Mountain fruit express the terroir with great strength and richness, while demonstrating exceptional balance of fruit, acidity, and tannin.

The area is known for producing powerful, tannic red wines. The wines are known for their balance in flavors, with an intense concentration of berry flavors.Compared to the Cabernet Sauvignon produced in other areas of the states, the Cabernets here are more structured than fruit-driven. Grapes from this area are in high demand and vineyards with notable reputations can receive as much as 30% above market price for their crops. The primary Cabernet Sauvignon clone planted is clone #8, which in Red Mountain produces a Cabernet wine similar in profile to a California wine, while the same clone planted in nearby Horse Heaven Hills AVA produces a wine similar in profile to Bordeaux.

100 point wines

Many of Washington “Cult wines” are produced from Cabernet Sauvignon grapes grown in this AVA including the 2002, 2003 and 2005 Cabernet Sauvignon, which scored the rare 100 point rating from Robert Parker “The Wine Advocate” Only 15 other wines in the US have received this designation, all made from California grapes. Only five other previous vintages have received consecutive perfect scores in The Wine Advocate’ publishing history. The Quilceda Creek wines were a blends with grapes from three Red Mountain vineyards-Ciel du Cheval, Klipsun, and Taptiel-and one vineyard from the nearby Horse Heaven Hills AVA.